


Marriage Is What Brings Us Together Today

by ivanolix



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Canon - TV, Canon Compliant, Canon Het Relationship, Established Relationship, F/M, Marriage, Married Couple, Wordcount: 100-1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-05
Updated: 2010-02-05
Packaged: 2017-10-20 21:55:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivanolix/pseuds/ivanolix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neither of them were planning on this, so they're having to make it up as they go along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marriage Is What Brings Us Together Today

**Author's Note:**

> Despite my indulgent reference to The Princess Bride, this fic actually ended up incorporating elements of a NC Kara/Sam plotbunny of mine—a serious one that explained Sam's "You think you're the first?" comment to Lee, and the importance of Kara's "So you should probably go before that happens" in Collaborators, and their inter-connectivity.

“So.” Kara is flopped across Sam, too sated to move. “We’re married.”

Sam grunts. There’s a moment, then he says, “What does that mean—exactly?”

“Frakked if I know,” Kara answers too fast.

“Great.”

“We’ll figure it out.”

Another pause reigns, and they might have been drifting off into sleep before Sam says, “It doesn’t mean less frakking, right?”

Kara snorts. “Hell no.”

It’s the first thing they establish.

After that, the definitions start adding up sneakily fast, in a way that both of them argue is unfair.

Like how they figure out that living together as a married pair means not hogging all the blankets, which Kara violently protests she doesn’t do.

And not leaving underwear, whether its clean or not, on the table they eat at. Sam’s never living that one down.

It means having to talk about kids and why they don’t want them—Kara’s reason is obvious once she starts talking, but Sam can’t quite put words to why it feels like a bad fit for him, at least in this lifetime.

Eventually Kara figures out that marriage means not going off without Sam and getting so drunk that she loses all inhibitions and flirts with the nearest thing that breathes. It also means not snapping at Sam that it’s none of his damn business when he asks why she did it.

And after a couple days and nights that Sam voluntarily spends at the Tyrols, she reluctantly admits that he was right, that at the very least marriage means she needs to tell him when she’s being messed up. Cally marches over and orders Kara to get Sam and his brooding out of her house, and Kara goes and asks for his forgiveness, says sometimes the need for control gets to her. Sam explains that she can control him in a dozen different ways that don’t involve toying with their vows.

With that settled, they decide that marriage means that Sam doesn’t mind that Kara’s going to make mistakes, he just wants her to let him know when it’s one of those times—and hopefully, later, why. And she agrees.

Marriage also means not asking why Kara can’t sleep some nights, because at some point she’ll explain the nightmares anyways. Sam always explains the morning after when it’s him.

It means accepting compromises when the cabin burns down and they have to live in a tent in New Caprica City. Even if the wind knocks over Kara’s canvas and gets paint on the sheets that they don’t notice, and that almost spoils their impromptu sex later. But marriage also means that it’s fine to admit, after a couple weary hours spent scrubbing at the stupid non-water-soluble paint until their skin is raw, that that wasn’t going to join the Top Ten Fraks of All Time, but that’s not a problem. Marriage means bad sex is okay, on occasion.

It also means that practice sometimes does make perfect, and after those times the Top Ten list is smugly delicious.

And it means that when Kara gets a head cold, Sam puts up with her congested ranting for three whole days, and he doesn’t even make a face when he kisses her after all that’s left over is sniffles.

Marriage means that when the head cold turns to pneumonia in Sam and Cottle says there’s no antibiotics, Kara realizes almost terrified that the “forever” in the definition of marriage isn’t an idle word, and she’ll do anything to keep it.

That’s as far as they get before they have to start learning the harder lessons, but it’s enough to keep them going for a long while. Maybe forever. They’ll try.


End file.
